French patent No. 2 574 598 describes an electrical terminal, in particular a miniature terminal, in which an electrically conductive wire is held against a wire-clamping wall of a conductive strip of electrical equipment, such as a junction block, for example, between said clamping wall and an internal wire-clamping wall of a cage that surrounds the strip, the wire being held under drive from a clamping screw which is screwed into the cage and which bears against the side of the strip opposite to the two wire-clamping walls.
The clamping screw is disposed obliquely in the cage relative to the wire-clamping wall of said cage and its tip presses directly against the strip. The screw is also pressed laterally against a lateral clamping element provided for this purpose on the cage.
A conductor wire is thus inserted between the clamping walls provided therefor on the strip and in the cage of a terminal along a direction that is oblique relative to the axis of the clamping screw.
When the terminal is housed in a box, e.g. of a connector, of a junction block, or of any other electrical equipment, the box generally includes an opening via which the wire is inserted into the terminal and a separate opening giving access to the clamping screw.
The terminal mentioned above is designed more specifically for equipment having a box in which the wire insertion opening and the screw-access opening for the same terminal are oriented obliquely relative to each other, each opening lying in a different face of the box, for example.
In contrast, it does not lend itself easily to making boxes for which axial connection is possible, i.e. for which the wire insertion opening and the screw-access opening of the same terminal lie parallel, which makes it possible, in particular, for them to open out in parallel in the same face of the box. However, this feature may be important since under some operating conditions, access can be obtained to a box via one of its faces only, in particular via a "front" face.